The Generals of the North American 3 Hockey League, a rookie league of sorts for the junior North American Hockey League, have been sold to Michelle Bryant, owner of the NAHL's Coulee Region Chill, and will be moving to La Crosse, Wis.

The sale was approved by the NA3HL on Tuesday, May 6, confirming the move for the 2014-15 season. The team will be renamed the La Crosse Freeze and play at the Green Island Ice Arena.

Generals co-owner Kelly Cronk, 60, said the sale was made official on April 30, putting a stamp on a 16-year run with his father Gale, now 85. Cronk declined to state the sale price.

"It was time to get out and move on," Cronk said.

The Cronks, Gale especially, have been known around Michigan hockey circles for decades. Gale was involved in the 1980 U.S. Olympic team, launched the Eastern Michigan Hockey Association in 1972 and ran the Michigan National Hockey League, which later became AAA Tier I Elite League.

The father-son duo bought the team in 1998 hoping to give youth hockey players in Michigan a place to play junior hockey. They were forced to go elsewhere, Kelly Cronk said. Players on the Generals roster ranged in age from 16 years old to 20.

"Our goal was to keep Michigan kids," Cronk said. "And in the last five to six years, if you're going to be competitive, (kids) went outside the state of Michigan to win.

"Michigan really took a hit in the economy crunch."

Cronk said he and his father wanted to keep the team in Flint and at Iceland Arenas, going as far as telling an interested buyer in Ft. Wayne, Ind., no last year, but there was no interest in Michigan. Fairland Management LLC, which also manages the Michigan Warriors and Perani Arena, operated the team during the 2013-14 season.

"I've been dragging my feet for a year because I wanted to keep it in Flint, but it didn't happen that way," Cronk said. "Nobody stepped up to the plate.

"It's not like we owned this thing and left. I've grown up with hockey and so did he. The timing was just right."

The Generals finished runner-up in the NA3HL playoffs during the 2013-14 season, winning the East Division with 86 points and a 42-4-2 regular season record. Attendance for home games at Iceland Arenas averaged 86 fans, fourth-lowest in the league.

Cronk said players' contracts will be honored by the team's Coulee Region Chill, the NAHL partner of the Freeze.

“We want our NA3HL team to be an extension of our Chill brand and to have the primary focus of player development," Bryant said in a statement. “We not only want to develop players to have the opportunity to play for the Chill NAHL club, but also any club in the NAHL or upper levels of junior hockey."

Said NA3HL President Mark Frankenfeld: "We have had multiple success stories now of common ownership operating both an NAHL and an NA3HL teams and we are confident that the La Crosse Freeze will fall into that category."